Vanessa Van Edwards describes a friend who consistently acts like she's never met her, using cold body language and avoidance while seeming nice to everyone else. She asks if you've dealt with this invisible meanness and what you'd do about it.
I want to call out this very weird, very awkward phenomenon, which is friend gaslighting. So I have a friend of a friend who I've met multiple times, who every time I see her, she acts like she hasn't met me before. Then she gives me one of these— once over every time I see her, and then very weird microaggressions that drive me crazy. So like, for example, she will not make eye contact with me in the group. So if everyone's talking, she'll make eye contact with everyone else but not me, even if I ask her a question. Like a little bit heartbreaking. Also, if I approach her in a group or I come up, she'll box her body. So she like turns her body away from me. And so I bring this up with my friends and I'm like, guys, like, do you experience this like weird coldness? And they're like, no, I don't know what you're talking about. She's so nice to me. I don't see it. And I'm like, we gotta stick up for our friends. We gotta point out the invisible meanness. Have you ever experienced the gaslighting? Have you ever experienced the invisible meanness? Also like, what do I do?
